Lord Asa Briggs, in his monumental history of the BBC, says that the BBC's 1932 move from Savoy Hill (behind the famous Savoy Hotel), to the new custom-built Broadcasting House represented the myth that, before, all was "intimacy and harmony" and that everything after was "bureaucracy and conflict."

     The architect Lieutenant Colonel G. Val Mayer was given the task of replacing Savoy Hill, a charming Georgian house and garden designed by John Nash, with a modern building that would provide office accommodation and a complex of sound studios for production and broadcast. Although BH contained 12 floors and 350 offices for 700 people, within its first year of using the facility the BBC found itself too big for its new headquarters. The original BH was expanded by a large extension, projected before the war, but only opened in 1961. It contains both offices and studios and interconnects with the original 1932 building.

     Val Mayer created something that the press at the time compared to a beached ocean liner. Mayer had to respect the unusual shape of the plot and the function of broadcasting. A central "boiler-house" of soundproofed studios was wrapped in an exterior of concrete offices. Three floors were below ground level, and some of the studios were bomb-proof. BH had the fastest elevators in London and became the first London building to install central air conditioning, because the central tower of silent sound studios in the middle had no natural ventilation.

     From the beginning, nearly every aspect of the building's existence was associated with controversy. The staff did not like their new home, and BBC Director General John Reith asked his colleagues to "ring to the inconveniences a good heart." Reith himself expressed his dislike of the BBC's new home and was embarrassed when his name was included in a confident Latin dedication in the entrance hall: "Deo Omnipotenti."

     Sculptor Eric Gill's external carvings and reliefs led to a complaint in the House of Commons. In March 1933 a Member of Parliament asked the home secretary if he would make the police compel the BBC to remove immediately the statue placed over the front entrance, as it was "objectionable to public morals and decency." He was referring to "Prospero and Ariel," and in particular to the display of Ariel's genitalia, which, according to oral history, had been reduced in size after the BBC's governors had inspected the work by looking up from the pavement. It is claimed that one of the governors climbed the scaffolding with a notebook and tape measure and informed Eric Gill, "In my view this young man is uncommonly well hung." Gill was the celebrity artist of his time; he was known as·"the married monk" and carved the statue in situ wearing medieval dress; he refused to accept a free wireless set.

     A major eccentricity of the building is that there appears that there is no logical connection between the stairs and the number of floors. This is because the original design had to be compromised in a "rights to light" dispute with neighbors (meaning the new BH could not cut off all the natural light to the existing buildings nearby), so that from the sixth floor upwards, the top of the building was narrowed by a mansard roof. Staff complaints led to an internal inquiry, and the report presented on 1 January 1934 savaged the building's functional features, complaining of noise leakage between studios, not enough lighting to read scripts and scores, doors that were not wide enough for pianos, and the fact that the Bakerloo Line underground could be heard in the studios that were below ground level. The concert hall was supposed to be a superstudio that would accommodate 100 musicians. Acoustic problems meant that it could only cope with 30 to 3 5.

     The only appreciation for the pioneering modernism of Australian Raymond MacGrath's interior design was to be found in Architectural Review, the editor of which described the art deco and jazz age colors and curves as the "New Tower of London." Apart from the council chamber, an auditorium, and the entrance hall, with Gill's symbolic figure of the Sower scattering seeds as a man might broadcast ideas that grow wherever they are heard, virtually nothing of the original interior has survived-not even the mock chapel, with an altar and cross projected electronically for religious broadcasts. Other than several contemporaneous publications, the 19 3os film "Death at Broadcasting House" in black and white is one of the few records available of the building's original interior.

     The first broadcast from the building by Henry Hall's new BBC Dance Orchestra on 15 March 1932 was also captured on newsreel. The BH survived the Blitz, even though a 500-pound delayed-action bomb killed seven people on 15 October 1940. The sound was recorded during the nine o'clock news, but newsreader Bruce Belfrage paused and had to continue for security reasons. More damage was caused by a land mine exploding in Portland Place on 8 December 1940.

     The steady increase in space needs led the BBC to take over the old Langham Hotel, across Portland Place from BH, for offices. In the 1980s, the BBC held an architectural competition, won by Foster Associates, to build a modern Radio Centre on the same site. It was never built because of financial restrictions, and plans to expand BBC facilities near the BBC's television centre at White City. In 1988 the BBC was prosecuted and fined because inadequate maintenance of a cooling tower on top of the building had caused the deaths from Legionnaires' disease of three people.

     BH has been made a "listed" (historic) building. BBC radio news and current affairs programs including the network BBC Five Live were moved to a purpose built bi-media news center at White City in West London in 1995. But the move was unpopular. The radio dimension of programming felt dominated by the size, ego, and costs of television. The BBC's Director of Radio and Music at the time of writing, Jenny Abramsky, observed that the radio program teams did not agree that synergies would emerge and would ensure that the BBC spoke with one voice.

     White City was also an unpopular location for journalism. It was far from Central London and the seat of power and decision-making. The lease on Bush House, the headquarters of BBC External Services was also due to expire. In 2001, the BBC decided to redevelop BH into a new home for BBC Radio & Music, BBC News, and the BBC World Service. The structure of the original 1932 building and surviving features such as the entrance hall and council chamber would be preserved in an integrated complex of 140 studios, a central atrium, and a newsroom half the size of a football pitch. Two streets have been closed to the public as four adjacent buildings are demolished and excavated to within three meters of a London underground tunnel. The scheme seeks to transform BH into the world's largest broadcasting news hub accommodating over 5,000 members of staff.

     The plan has been designed by British architect Sir Richard MacCormac and his team and is described by the BBC as "a remarkable combination of the old and the new." The British Observer newspaper on 3 January 2003 described it as "a glass and marble palace," expected to be completed by 2008. The studios of old BH have been redesigned for the digital age. The BBC claims the new complex will include public spaces and amenities "to make the BBC more accessible and welcoming to visitors." The new "BBC Palace" is being equipped for national and international radio, television, and online services. During the late 1990s it accommodated an interactive "BBC Experience" exhibition, which purported to inform paying customers about the history of the corporation.